The heinous legacy of a revolution

Four years after being killed in Egypt, thousands of banners hanging from the balconies of the city of Trieste continue to demand justice for Giulio Regeni, originally from the Italian town and who in 2016 was disappeared in Cairo while investigating an apparently innocuous issue , but more than sensitive according to the degree of exposure of the authorities, or the bodies they hide in the closet: the role of the Egyptian unions. His body was found in a ditch, with a broken neck and violet wrists, but no one has responded for the crime because Egypt gives Italian justice long.

The sad fate of Regeni revives today in the arbitrary detention of another young man with a similar profile: the Egyptian Patrick Zaki, a researcher at the University of Bologna arrested weeks ago when he returned to Cairo for -reads the statement of objections- activism, call for protests , spreading false news and inciting violence and terrorism. The civil rights organization with which it collaborates - and from which it was once mobilized by Regeni - has denounced torture.

Regeni and Zaki are the tip of the iceberg of the 40,000 political prisoners of the Abdelfatá al Sisi regime. The majority are putative children of the revolution that overthrew Mubarak; a boost of freedom and democracy has long since been necrosed. The only difference between those mentioned and the anonymous rest lies in the support - and the speaker - of public opinions sensitive to any abuse.

Nothing enjoyed by the mass confined in the dungeons of a regime to which the West courts and benefits by palmar interests (and whose lock, it goes without saying, also contributes by inaction or omission): for geopolitical reasons, such as the retaining wall before the Libyan chaos and emigration to Europe, or by the necessary stability of the region, that any stumble or hesitation of the Nile country would undermine.

Greece and Cyprus underpin the authority of the marshal who came to power through a coup d'etat for energy interests: the great booty of gas in the eastern Mediterranean. Italy, despite the Regeni case , has maintained and even intensified its economic ties (the Zohr field, in the hands of the oil company Eni). Spain, which in 2013 suspended the sale of weapons after the coup, then resumed its exports. And the US, with or without a nose clip - most likely the latter - gives Al Sisi ears as a preferred partner. The only hiatus between Washington and Cairo was the mandate of the first democratically elected president, the Islamist Morsi. With the return of the military to power, the honeymoon returned.

Economic or strategic interests versus human rights: to this exclusionary dichotomy, that balancing exercise called high politics seems to be reduced in many countries. Egypt is a key piece in the Eastern and Euro-Mediterranean concert, but not at any price.

You can follow THE COUNTRY Opinion on Facebook, Twitter or subscribe here to the Newsletter.